


Restoring Force

by sunsetmog



Category: One Direction (Band), Radio 1 RPF
Genre: Future Fic, Getting Together, M/M, Relationship Negotiation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-16 13:10:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2270961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetmog/pseuds/sunsetmog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the end of things; it's the beginning of everything else. </p><p>Or: it's Nick's last Breakfast Show.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Restoring Force

**Author's Note:**

  * For [estrella30](https://archiveofourown.org/users/estrella30/gifts).



> Thank you to the lovely **mrsronweasley** for reading this ten times (I restrained myself to just sending it to her every time I'd added a thousand words) and for her excellent beta. Any remaining errors are my own. 
> 
> I've been wanting to write a story like this for a while, a _we can't right now, but one day_ story. Today's the one day.  <3

There's a countdown to his last show somewhere inside his head, and he can't turn it off. It was there even before he'd decided to call it a day, the ticking slowly making itself heard for the three or four months before he'd finally gone into Ben Cooper's office with a rueful smile on his face, and a request to break his contract in his pocket. 

The clock is still beating out a gentle _it's time_ over and over and over in his head. Now that it's days to go rather than weeks, rather than months, the ticking has got louder, the insistent push towards the end beating loud and clear. He can count it in hours now, if he wants, work it out and count it down. He doesn't; there are newspaper interviews to give, all much the same— _I've done my time, now it's someone else's turn, I've loved every single second of it, and I'm excited for what's next_ —and the gossip items with their focus on the listening figures to ignore. There are people to see and a future to plan, and even though this job has been the culmination of everything he's ever wanted in his life, leaving it behind no longer fills him with crippling terror. 

He's thirty-three, and it's time. 

~*~

He'd got the keys to his new place seven months ago; a Thursday, running late after a meeting overran at work, the estate agent visibly trying not to look pissed off when Nick jogged up the steps brandishing a damp copy of _The Guardian_ and a blue and white striped umbrella. Pixie was supposed to be there with him, but she'd cried off at the last minute, all stuffed up from the cold that had been making the rounds of all their friends. 

So in the end, he'd stood in the entrance hall by himself, keys in hand, the final papers from the estate agent left on the stairs, the door closed against the outside world. _Nightingale House_ , the deeds said, and Nick was still in two minds whether to keep that or lose it. An end terrace with its own gated driveway, five bedrooms including one in a converted attic, original Victorian mosaic in the entrance hall, and a gigantic dining room with a glass roof and sun room opening out onto the patio and garden. The master bedroom had two dressing rooms. 

His dad still keeps telling him how good an investment it is. 

Nick keeps his suitcases in the empty dressing room. 

~*~

Aimee's daughter is a tiny ginger child with sticky fingers, a wicked laugh, and an obsession with Nick's laughter lines. 

"I know," he says, balancing her on his hip as he watches Aimee fix them drinks in his kitchen. "Can't forget I'm getting old with you around, can I, love? Pointing out my wrinkles every five seconds."

She laughs at him, fanning her fingers out over his temple. 

Delphinium—Delphi for short—is eighteen months old, and she's gravitated towards Nick since she was born, choosing to follow him round like a tiny puppy from the moment she could pull herself up onto her little chubby hands and knees and crawl around the floor. She has Ian's smile, but Aimee's personality, a tiny, bright, firework of a child. Nick keeps the picture books she likes on the bottom shelf in his living room, next to a box of toys. 

_Nightingale_ is Delphi's home away from home; she even lived here with her mum for the five and a half weeks that Aimee and Ian had spent apart when Delphi was a year old and Aimee and Ian hadn't stopped arguing for three months straight; five and a half weeks of Aimee trying to decide whether sticking it out was worth the investment of marriage counselling. 

Ian's out on the patio with LMC and Matt and Fifi and Tina and Heather and Jenny and Paul; one last gathering of as many Breakfast Show crew old and new as he could get his hands on, one week to go. 

"You okay?" Aimee asks, topping up Nick's cocktail jug with Pimms no.1. "Not panicking?"

He should be; he hasn't got another job lined up to go straight into, and he's got a mortgage to think about. All the bits and pieces he does should be enough to cover that, but he's enough of his father's son to want something regular to rely on.

He kisses the top of Delphi's head. "No," he says. "Not panicking."

She smiles at him then, nudging the jug in his direction so that she can steal a protesting Delphi out of his arms. "Good," she says, wrapping Delphi up into a hug. "You carry that jug out, it weighs a ton."

"All right," Nick says, even though the jug's probably lighter than a child, and he makes faces at Delphi so that she beams at him over Aimee's shoulder. 

~*~

The headline in _The Sun_ says _Harry back with Lucy_ , and has a picture of Harry and Lucy Chapman, both of them holding Frappuccinos, Harry clearly in the middle of talking, and Lucy laughing. 

Lucy Chapman is twenty-seven, and is mostly known for her encyclopaedic knowledge of music, and for being the saviour of music television. They'd found her on Radio Aire at some point round the back end of 2013, bunging her on as the face of MTV early in 2014. By the time Christmas had rolled around that year, Lucy's afternoon music show on MTV was the most talked about programme in the music calendar, and MTV was back. 

She'd started going out with Harry in the autumn of 2015, but their relationship hadn't fizzled out with the onslaught of spring. It hadn’t fizzled out until the following autumn, in fact, and Nick had heard that that had had more to do with Harry constantly touring and Lucy constantly working than anything else.

There's no reason for Nick to dislike Lucy, since she's smart and funny and witty and bright and likes pop music just as much as Nick does, and she's good mates with Miquita. There's no reason at all for him to hate her, except sometimes he watches her laugh and thinks _Harry loves you_ , and he can't help the way the feelings catch in his chest, tightening around his heart like there's ever, ever been any sort of chance for him and Harry outside of people's imaginations. 

He avoids her at parties. It's just easier that way. 

~*~

It's not that he and Harry ever stopped talking. They still talk. They just—don't talk as much. That's all. It's not a _thing_. It's just—a thing that happened. 

Harry's in America most of the time, anyway. 

~*~

It rains, his last day on the Breakfast Show. He wakes up at four in the morning to the steady, relentless pounding of rain against the windowpanes, Dog curled up at the foot of the bed with his nose hidden underneath his paws. It's pitch black out, and he'd left the window open overnight for a bit of fresh air, and now there's a damp patch on the carpet where the rain had come in. 

He sits up then, wrapping an arm around his knees, and reaches for his phone to check the time. 

In amongst the rest of them, there's a message from Harry, sent last night Nick's time, that just says _#teamgrimmy_.

Nick goes downstairs and puts the coffee machine on and waits another ten minutes before he texts back _#teamlads_. 

He waits for a reply, but none comes. 

~*~

He cries before the seven-thirty news; he hadn't meant to, but it's a mixture of Emma Watson showing up bearing a set of table mats and coasters with Instagram pictures of Nick hugging Dog on them (and one sneaked on in the middle with Nick hugging Puppy, that makes him well up even though it's been such a long time), and the first of Matt's Best Bits compilations that pushes him over the edge. 

It's not that it's the best parts of his first year doing the show, and Harry hasn't made the cut once; it isn't. It's not the memory of that supercut of _One Direction One Direction One Direction One Direction_ , or _Team Lads_ , or the Brits, or lazy phone calls, or late night baking; it's the fact it's not there, it's omitted, it's gone from history apart from in Nick's head. 

It's okay, moving on, except when everyone forgets what you've left behind. 

~*~

Emma hugs him during the seven-thirty news. 

"Are you going to stay?" he asks, still clutching his Instagram table mats. They're mates now, him and Emma Watson, and he hadn't expected that when he'd taken on the job.

"Of course," she says, and her smile means something, but Nick can't read it. "This is my last chance to be on the Grimmy Breakfast Show, Nick."

He smiles at that, even though it's a bit wet round the edges. It's his last chance too. He doesn't wish he was staying, but he does wish it wasn't ending. 

~*~

There's a supercut of his charity work after the news: the bath of meal worms, the pink hair, the ridiculous bike ride, the rowing he did down the Thames, the Adventure Challenges, the green hair, the purple hair, the triathlon he'd genuinely hated from start to finish, the rhythmic gymnastics, the food challenges, the ballroom dancing, the interviews with the young heroes from the Teen Awards. 

They tell him how much he's raised over the years, and this time it's not just him sniffling and wiping his eyes on his sleeve. 

There's a lot, really, a lot that's happened in the past few years. There's more than merely a lot of early mornings and a lot of music and a lot of just him chatting with his mates. He'd forgotten that, really. Sort of lost it somewhere along the way. 

It's not the stuff they remind him of that aches, though, it's the rest of it. 

~*~

Niall's on the radio just before eight, and that's the One Direction part of the morning over and done with. Niall's bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, as per usual, and Nick can't help but fall into easy conversation with him, even as Niall's thanking him for all the support over the years, and Nick feels pretty good about that, because he _has_ given Harry's band all of the support they could have asked for, and Niall is good at being earnest and sincere. They all are, really. That's why they're still around, six studio albums later. It's got to end sometime; everything does, but the lads don't seem too unhappy with staying somewhere near the top just that little bit longer. Rumour has it, their next release might be a greatest hits album, and everyone knows what that means, but Nick doesn't ask about it. 

The conversation bleeds on over the eight o'clock news start time, but Nick doesn't care. Niall's laughing, telling everyone about Liam tripping over and taking Zayn down with him. Nick just goes with it, because there's a Tweet on his phone from Harry's mum, and it's a link to a picture of Anne and Gemma and Robin and Stevie, Gemma's boyfriend, and they've all got stupid quiffs—or fake quiffs, in Robin's case—and the four of them are holding up a sign saying _we're going to miss you #teamgrimmy forever_ , and there's a lump in Nick's throat he just can't speak past. 

He thumbs his phone shut and shoves it into his pocket, and goes back to saying _bye bye bye_ to Niall, and handing over to the news. 

During the news, he Tweets back _Thanks loves xxx_. 

There are such a lot of people around, all hugging him and talking to him and it's wonderful and brilliant and sad and great all at the same time, and there's barely time to gulp down some coffee in the break, let alone nip out to the toilet for a wee and a quick check of his phone. 

~*~

@Harry_Styles: @grimmers team grimmy forever instagram.com/p/864tj6uh #teamgrimmyforever

It's a picture of Harry in a faded, stretched out _Team Lads_ t-shirt, his stupid long hair gelled up into a huge quiff, _team grimmy_ written in marker pen in-between his tattoos on his forearms. 

It takes all of Nick's willpower not to tweet _team harry forever_. 

He shoves his phone in Fiona's direction instead. "Look after this, will you?" he says, and turns his attention back to Matt Fincham, who's queued up a personalised good luck message from Miley Fucking Cyrus. "Legend," Nick says, fitting his headphones back over his ears again. "I love her."

"We _know_ ," Finchy says, rolling his eyes. "You've only said it nine million times in the last five years."

"Shut it, Matthew Fincham," Nick says. "Your mum sent me a good luck text this morning. Did she send you one?"

"It's still weird she texts you," Finchy says, pointedly not answering directly. 

"Do you think she'll stop when I'm not on anymore?"

"Wouldn't have thought so," Finchy says. "She's always on about you."

"Good," Nick says decidedly, and then Collette turns up with Conor Maynard for a live action re-enactment of _are you jokin'_ , and Nick forgets everything that isn't having the best time of his life for the moment. 

"Phone call for you," Finchy says, after Collette's wowed everyone. Daisy's here, and Sam, and Pixie and Aimee and Delphi and Henry and Gillian. Nick never wants to be alone again. 

"Ooh, from who?" Nick asks, grinning. The whole show's going out on the webcams today. He waves at the cameras. 

"Who'd you want to ring you?" 

"No idea," Nick says. "Everyone. Is it my mum?"

"Funnily enough," Finchy says, and he pauses, and all of a sudden, Nick wants his parents to share in this. He'd invited them down, but it was Liv's graduation or something, so they couldn't drive down until this afternoon. They'll be here for the party tonight. 

"Is it my mum?" Nick asks. "Go on, put her through."

"Well," Finchy says. "We have got a message from your mum and dad."

"Eileen! And Pete. Come on. Bung 'em on."

"It's a message, not a call." He presses something on the console, and then it's Nick's mum on the speakers. 

"Hiya, love," Eileen says. "We're so sorry we couldn't be there with you today. Your dad's here too, and we just wanted to say how proud we both are of you, aren't we, Pete?"

"Not bad," Pete concedes, voice a bit muffled. "You've done all right for yourself, haven't you?"

"Thanks, Dad," Nick says, even as his mum's taking over the microphone again. 

"And we just wanted to say, that how on earth could you possibly believe that we wouldn't be there—" there's a pause, and the doors to the studios open, and Nick's mum and dad and sister and brother and niece are there in the doorway, and Nick's heart suddenly feels terribly, terribly full. 

They have an emotional, ridiculous, stupid reunion on the radio, and Nick has a bit of a sniffle again, and his dad gets to take centre-stage for a while, which Nick loves. They look so proud of him, and it isn't like he doesn't know how proud they are of him, but all the same, it's nice to see it. 

"We've still got a caller on the line for you," Fifi says, a few minutes later. 

"What, still?" Nick stops going on and on about how when he was growing up, doing this job was his dream, and he _got it_. He keeps thinking about that Instagram picture of Harry. _Team Grimmy Forever_. "I thought it was my mum."

"Nah," Fifi says, sharing a glance with Ian, who grins. 

Nick's breath catches, because Finchy's started playing the _One Direction-One Direction-One Direction megamix_ , and it is not his fault that he is always, constantly, desperately unsatisfied with what he has. 

( _team grimmy forever_ )

But it can't be Harry, he can't get his hopes up—"I've already spoken to Niall, I thought we were done with One Direction."

"We're never done with One Direction," Matt Fincham says, and everyone in the studio and in the Live Lounge laughs too, and Nick has to laugh even though he doesn't feel like laughing, because he wants it to be Harry, he wants it to be Harry so much, and they haven't spoken in weeks and weeks and weeks, not since before Nick gave up all of this. 

Always at different sides of the fucking world, at different sides of the stupid fucking clock. 

"Hi," Harry Styles says, slow and low and a bit crackly down the phone line. Nick's tried not to be in love with him, he's _tried_. "Hi, Nick. Happy last ever breakfast show."

"Oh my god," Nick says, even though his heart is in his throat. "It's Harry Styles from The Wanted—from One Direction." Everyone's laughing. He's not laughing. He's not sure he could. 

"How are you feeling?" Harry asks. 

"I feel good," Nick says. "How are you feeling?"

"I feel good," Harry says. "I feel very happy."

"That's good," Nick says. "How come, Harold?"

"Dunno," Harry says, and he laughs, and Nick laughs too, because it's been too long, and Harry's going out with Lucy again, the tabloids said so, and because they're having this conversation over the airwaves, on Nick's last day. "Probably jetlagged."

"That's the life," Nick says. "Jetting off round the world, never even know what city you're in, or what time of the day or night it is. Fancy."

"I'm in London," Harry says. "Got back this morning."

"What time?" Nick says, and his heart's starting to race. He's desperate not to let it show. "It's only half eight now. Where on earth are you?"

"In the car on the way back from Heathrow. Just got my stuff off the plane."

"What are you doing back here? I thought pop stars were off living fabulous lives in America or whatever." He pauses. "This is incredible radio, by the way."

"That's what we're known for," Harry says. "Anyway, I missed it. London. So I came back."

"Just in time for my last show," Nick says, and he's pretty sure his hands are shaking. He hides them under the table. He's probably leaving fingertip-sized bruises on his thighs. "Happy coincidence."

Harry doesn't say anything to that, and Nick's heart catches. 

"Hey," Matt Fincham says, butting in. "Have you got a message for Nick, Harry?"

"Oh," Harry says, a little sleepily. "Yes, hang on."

"This is live radio, Harold," Nick tries to laugh. He digs his fingers into his thighs. 

"Yeah." There's a pause. Fiona shoves Nick's phone across the desk to him. There's a message from Harry on the screen: _You're my everything and I love you always. Physically. Harry from one direction. Remember that?_

"Oh my god," Nick says. He looks over at Fiona, who shrugs her shoulders. "Oh my god." He shakes his head. "Harry—"

"I just wanted to say that you're the best kind of DJ. The best kind. And it's really sad you're leaving. And we're all going to miss you."

It's a rubbish message, but Nick isn't even listening. He's sent back a reply, _what?_ "You're terrible," he says out loud. 

" _You're_ terrible. Are you going to invite me to your leaving party, then?"

"Consider yourself invited," Nick says, distractedly. "Hey, my mum's here. Do you want to say hi to my mum? And my dad. Pete's here."

_I was remembering._

_Terrible timing_ , Nick texts back, as Pete asks Harry if he's been on holiday, like One Direction haven't been on a worldwide arena tour for the last nine months. 

_Sorry it's during the show_

_No I mean lucy. I saw the papers_. He can't do this. Not now. He shoves his phone away again and takes over his show. There are people everywhere, friends and colleagues and people he doesn't even know, and he can figure out what the fuck Harry's on about another time. After this. Away from here. 

When all of this is done. 

Fuck, it's his last day. 

~*~

He ends the show the way it began, with Jay-Z and Kanye. 

It's sad and rubbish and everyone hugs everyone else and him most of all, but it still feels like he's made the right decision. 

~*~

Harry doesn't show up that night. Nick doesn't know whether to be upset or relieved. 

The message on his phone says _me and lucy are just friends. Not getting back together._

He knows what he wants that to mean, but he can't think about that, not tonight. Maybe not ever. He shoves his phone back into his pocket, and doesn't message Harry back. 

~*~

Nick concentrates on getting shit faced, and celebrating, and hugging everyone and being the Radio 1 Breakfast Show Host just this one, last time, and it's magnificent. It's _magnificent_. His family and his friends and everyone he's worked with are here. There are speeches and presents and drinks and toasts and hugs and music and a giant, karaoke version of Wrecking Ball done by everyone. 

There's a gentle, drunken wish somewhere down inside that no one got that on video, but Nick suspects the bar staff had their phones out. 

And then it's three in the morning, and he's in the back of a cab with Collette, weighed down by presents and gifts and bags and the freedom that comes with being unemployed, and if he secretly hopes Harry will be waiting for him on the doorstep at _Nightingale_ , then he's disappointed when he gets home and the driveway's in darkness. 

~*~

Collette has a rehearsal, so she drags Nick out of bed at eleven in the morning on Saturday to make her a cup of coffee. She's refused to learn how to use Nick's coffee machine on principle, so Nick blearily makes her a drink as she puts on her make up at the kitchen table, and he kisses the top of her head as he sits down next to her with two macchiatos. 

"What's it like being unemployed?" she asks, putting on lipstick. 

"Bit like being hungover, I think," Nick says. Dog is curled up in the basket by the back door. It's still raining. It's been raining for two days. "You want anything to eat?"

She wrinkles her nose. "Nah," she says. "I'll make 'em get lunch before we start rehearsing. Give the hangover another hour to piss off."

He smiles at her, and rests his head against her shoulder. "You still going to be friends with me now I'm unsuccessful and out of a job?"

"Might do," she says. She kisses the top of his head, and downs her coffee in one. "Love you."

"Love you," he says. There's a message on his phone from Harry. It says _how do you feel about cats_.

He doesn't feel anything right now. He takes his coffee into the sun room after Collette leaves, and tugs the blanket off the back of the sofa so he can cocoon himself in a ball and watch the weather drown the garden in grey, Dog padding in after him and curling up against his chest. 

~*~

He wakes up a couple of hours later to the doorbell. 

It's Harry. 

"Thought you were coming to my party?" Nick says, stepping back out of the way so that Harry can come inside. He's carrying two large, flat parcels, and a holdall. 

Harry shrugs awkwardly. "Something came up."

"Okay," Nick says. "Do you want something to drink?"

"I'll have a brew if you're making one."

This is the first time Harry's been in Nick's new house. He trails after him into the kitchen, looking around him as Nick puts a teabag in a cup and fills it directly from the hot water dispenser. 

"Fancy," Harry says. 

"Don't tell me your posh kitchen doesn't have one of these," Nick says. "I've only got almond milk, not normal. That all right?"

Harry just nods. 

Nick makes himself a coffee, knocks back two paracetamol with a glass of water, and offers Harry the packet, just in case. Harry shakes his head. 

"The band's over," Harry says, after a minute. "That's what we were doing yesterday."

Nick sits down. He'd sort of known it was coming, but it's still a shock. He tries to read Harry's face, but Harry just looks tired. "Is everything all right?" It's a stupid question to ask, but there isn't another, at least not one that Nick can think of.

"Yeah. I mean. It's the greatest hits album, and another single, and a tour. Then—I don't know. Just time to do other things. A break."

"You okay?"

Harry nods again. "It was time. I mean. We all wanted it, I think? Sick of living out of a suitcase. Louis' little brother asked if Louis was his uncle. I want a cat."

"Zayn has cats."

"I want a cat I see every day." Harry smiles. It looks a bit sad. "It's just—you know how there's this stuff that's annoying but it's all right? Then it sort of stops being all right? That's the way we were going. We just decided on a break before it stopped being all right."

"But, like, no problems, then?" It's a stupid question. He knows how Harry feels about his band. This is his family that's changing forever, and Nick knows a bit of how that feels, but not like this. He's come home every night to his own place all these years; Harry's band live on top of each other, and if that doesn't lead to the five of them bleeding into each other at the edges, then Nick has no idea what would.

"No." Harry's eyes are bright. "Not saying we didn't cry, but we're doing one last tour. You could come out with us. For a bit. If you wanted."

"Harry—"

"I got you a present," Harry says, not letting Nick finish. "Well, two."

"You should have the tour of the house first," Nick says. All of a sudden, he doesn't want to be unwrapping anything Harry's got for him. "Cos you haven't been here and everything."

"All right," Harry says, and Nick shows him it all. Shows him the mosaic floor in the entrance hall, and the Victorian-style downstairs loo, and the living rooms and the sun room and the garden and the patio out through the rain-drenched windows, and then up to the bedrooms and the bathrooms and the huge great fucking big master bedroom with its dressing rooms, and up again to the attics. 

This house is outside of Nick's reach, if he's honest. Obscurity isn't an option. 

"It's great," Harry says once the tour's done. He keeps staring at the _Enjoy_ sign over the fireplace in the main living room. Nick hadn't meant to put it pride of place. It just ended up like that. "It's a really nice house."

"Yeah," Nick says. "Just got to find a way to keep it in the manner it's become accustomed to, that's all."

Harry glances at him, and then back at the sign. "I'm glad you kept it," he says, finally. 

Nick nods. "I always loved it." He shrugs. "Wasn't just cos it came from you."

There's such a lot that they're not saying. There's such a lot that Nick's always not said, because there's no such thing as a happy ending if you're falling in love with a pop star who can't love you back. 

There's just the holes in their friendship that Nick hadn't ever anticipated, the gaps where their lives went in different directions and they hadn't come back together afterwards, like Nick had always sort of thought they would. 

"You should open your presents," Harry says, and he goes to get them from the kitchen, bringing them back into the living room and putting them both on the table in front of Nick. They're both big and square and flat-ish, and Nick thinks they're probably pictures. 

He opens the smaller one first, being careful with the paper. There's a ribbon dividing it into four, and he undoes it properly, unknotting it and letting it unwind. 

Inside is a black frame, square and heavy, surrounding a beautifully inked sentence. It's upside down so he can't read it. He turns it the right way up. It says, _I feel very happy with what happened last night_.

He looks at Harry. 

"It's what I said to you," Harry says, and his eyes are bright. "The night after The Brits. When we were on the radio."

"I remember," Nick says. He looks back down at it. 

"Thought it was apt. Thought it was you. No regrets." 

Nick swallows. "It is," he says. There's a bit of him that wonders if things would have been different if he ever had told Harry how he felt about him, but that bit of him's an idiot. It wouldn't have changed anything; not really. Nick would still have been ten years older, would still have been doing The Breakfast Show, would still be way past being a teenager. Harry would still have been in his band, still focused on seeing the world, doing it all, experiencing everything. It wouldn't have changed anything. 

There had been a moment, that night after The Brits, where Nick had covered Harry's hand with his own, drunk and happy and at the top of his fucking game, where he might have kissed Harry, if the planets had aligned a little differently. 

He doesn't regret not doing it, but he does sort of wish that he had. 

The other present is bigger, and heavier. It's more rectangular than square, and Nick's careful again with the wrapping paper. When he opens it up, for a moment he doesn't quite understand what he's seeing; the frame contains nine images, set in a grid, but until he turns it the other way round, he can't make sense of them. 

They're hearts; nine of them, all anatomically correct, each of the parts cut out of differently patterned paper, layered up on top of each other like the world's oddest decoupage. Each heart is different. Some of the pattern work on the paper pieces of each heart are picked out in gold. 

"They're made out of vintage origami paper," Harry says. "Some of them are gilded."

"Okay," Nick says. It's beautiful, in its way. It's also inexplicable. 

"I've had it for a while," Harry goes on. "Just, you know. Waiting. For the right time. The other one's your leaving present."

"What's this one, then?"

"Dunno," Harry says. He's just in a t-shirt, even though it's a cold day and the rain's still coming down hard. Nick can see Harry's tattoo; the heart he wears on his sleeve. "It's just—I wanted to give it to you."

"Hearts," Nick says softly, and he can't look up. He can't look away from his picture, and the nine hearts, and Harry's heart on his sleeve. He can't look him in the face because he knows that everything he wants will be written all over his, and he can't let on. He can't. It's the only secret he's got that he can't give up. 

"Yeah," Harry says. There's a question in his voice that Nick doesn't know the answer to. He can't even be sure of the question. It's all too much. 

"I'm taking my mum and dad and everyone for dinner later on," Nick says quickly, because he can't go into this, he just can't. "The family, you know. You can come if you want."

"All right," Harry says, and Nick really, really doesn't know what to do with any of this: his dream job ending, Harry's band coming to an end, this house that's more than he is, the empty second dressing room, Harry giving him a memory and a heart, all happening at the same time. 

"I'll make us a drink," Nick says, instead of dealing with any of it. "And then I'll go and get a shower."

~*~

They have dinner at the new Ottolenghi restaurant near Claridges, and for once, it's just Nick's mum and dad, Andy, Jane, Liv, and Shae, and no one else but him and Harry. His family have always loved Harry, and Harry's always fit right on in. Nick's dad doesn't always have the clearest idea of what's going on anymore—something that's come to light more in the past year, and something that Nick's never entirely sure he's going to learn how to deal with—but Harry sits next to him and talks to him the whole meal, and doesn't seem to mind one bit that Nick's dad forgets the name of his band and asks if Harry's just been on holiday. 

Nick can't meet his mum's eyes when he listens in to his dad forgetting. It's too hard. He just eats his twice-cooked baby chicken and helps himself to Jane's uneaten beetroot, and lets Liv go on about this new flat she's wanting to move in to. 

And afterwards, when the wine's done, and the dessert plates have been cleared away, and when Nick's tucked his hand into the curve of his mum's elbow because there's going to be press outside and he knows his mum hates it, he's gratified that Harry stays with his dad, Andy going automatically to his other side. 

The thing is, he wants Harry's presents to mean something, but he's so fucking scared of getting hurt, he can't even bring himself to try. 

~*~

They stay out far too late, all of them together, drinking cocktails in an underground bar that's just opened off Mayfair. But afterwards, when he's put his family in a taxi and is about to put Harry in another, he finds he can't bring himself to do it. He stands up, hand to the open taxi door, barring Harry's way in. 

"Come back and stay at mine," he says, and his heart's pounding, and he doesn't even know why. He can't look at Harry. He looks inside the cab instead. "I've not seen you in ages. You barely know Dog at all."

"You think if I get a cat, we can just call her Cat?" Harry asks, which isn't a yes or a no.

"Don't see why not," Nick says, and he steps back, out of the way. He's not a Radio 1 DJ anymore. Sometimes he remembers at the oddest moments. 

"The hearts," Harry says, getting into the taxi. "They meant something."

"Yeah," Nick says, climbing in and sitting down next to him. He looks out of the window. "I know."

~*~

They sleep in Nick's bed, the two of them side by side, Dog keeping watch at the end of the bed, nose by Nick's foot. 

Nick thinks he'll never drop off, that Harry will be unconscious next to him and he'll be staring up at the ceiling, but it doesn't go like that. He's out almost as soon as his head hits the pillow, and he doesn't wake up again until morning. 

Harry's still there, next to him. 

~*~

"Haven't you got a home to go to?" Nick asks at lunchtime. The _I feel very happy with what happened last night_ print is propped up on the kitchen table, leaning against the wall with a Le Creuset salt pig holding it up. 

Harry shrugs. He's been through Nick's fridge and come out with eggs and a forlorn pack of mushrooms; they've just had omelettes for lunch. "What are you going to do with yourself now you've got all this free time?"

"Dunno. Write a book, maybe. I'll do, like, two hundred words before I get bored. Take up cooking, like Daisy. I don't know. There's stuff. There are ideas, I just need to pick them. Probably."

"I meant it when I said come out on tour with us."

"What am I going to do out on tour with you?" He tries to make it sound flippant. He's not sure if he succeeds. 

"I've no idea," Harry says. "Watch side stage. Just—you've never been, all right? And this might be your last chance."

"Why do you want me to, though?" It's the question he wishes he wasn't asking. 

"Cos I want to show you it?" Harry shrugs again. He eats a bit of mushroom off the side of his plate. "It's this thing, Nick. It's my life and I love it, and I want to show you it. That's why."

"I could write my book from the road," Nick suggests. He's never writing a book. Not unless it's like Alexa's was, and just pictures. He can never be bothered taking pictures, either, unless it's of his dog or his house or his friends. No one's going to want that. 

"Yeah," Harry says. "Will you come?"

"Course," Nick says, and it was never going to be a _no_. He just didn't know how to say yes. 

Something in Harry's face softens. It makes Nick's breath catch, but he looks back down at his plate instead. 

"We could go out and get dessert," Harry suggests. "Or just get you some food in, or whatever. Your fridge is empty."

"I've been busy," Nick says. 

"I know," Harry says. "I really want you to come out on tour with us."

"I know," Nick says. He feels close to tears and he doesn't know why. "What are you going to do when the tour's done? Do you know yet?"

Harry makes a face at that. "We should go out. Is that patisserie still there? The one that does the fruit tarts?"

"Yeah. It's still there." They used to go there a lot. He hasn't been there in a long time. 

They take Dog out with them, Nick holding onto the lead as Harry checks his phone. The rain's let up for the first time in days, so even though they're bundled up in anoraks with hoods, they don't actually need them. 

"The papers are still going on about you and Lucy, then," Nick says, as they walk past the newsagent on the corner. All the newspapers are in the stand out the front, each paper behind a thick plastic curtain to keep the rain off. 

"Still not true, though," Harry says. Nick risks glancing at him, but Harry's looking the other way, towards the newspaper stand.

"You were good together, I thought." He'd been good enough at being happy for them the first time around. He's trying for neutral, this time around, but it's hard to even get the words out. 

He wishes he didn't want Harry so much. He wishes he was better at hiding. 

"Yeah," Harry says. He doesn't say anything else, and Nick can't think of anything to say either, so he doesn't say anything. They walk down the road, and round the corner. The park's in the distance. Dog is already gearing up for maximum excitement. He always goes mental in the park; it's quite embarrassing sometimes. Nick loves it.

"So," Nick says finally. 

"Me and Lucy were great," Harry says. "I mean—it's not that I'm gay."

Nick doesn't fall over his feet. He doesn't do anything, even though his world just shifted a little on its axis, and everything feels a bit odder than it had done thirty seconds ago. "It's not?"

"I said I wasn't bisexual, do you remember?"

"No," Nick lies. 

"It's just—there are labels, right, and then there's me, and back then I was, like, nineteen. I was nineteen, wasn't I?" He's looking at Nick now, but Nick pretends to pay attention to Dog instead. He's panicking. 

Nick's not man enough for this. He can't quite remember what they're supposed to be talking about. He's not sure if Harry actually wants an answer, so he shrugs instead. 

"Did you ever have that? That kind of—flux? Sometimes there'd just be this shift, and I'd be, like, okay, this is me, and it would be, and then it would shift again a bit, and I'd be, like, okay, this one is me, and it kept changing."

"Right." Nick's trying not to hope. He's trying so, so hard not to hope. 

"I wasn't, when I said it," Harry says. "I mean, maybe I was, but I wasn't, you know? Like, when I said that, I wasn't." Harry shoves his hands in his pockets. It's starting to rain again. 

They're outside the cake shop, and they go inside and Harry orders two fruit tarts and hands over the money and takes a picture with the girl behind the counter. Then they're back outside on the pavement, Harry holding a white cardboard box with their tarts in that's already getting rained on, and instead of turning back towards Nick's, they walk on towards the park. 

"It wasn't that I didn't want to be with girls when I was with her," Harry says, carrying on like they hadn't had a four minute interlude in the patisserie, and like Nick's world isn't somersaulting. Harry keeps on looking at him, and Nick has no idea what expression to school his face into. He has no idea what he's supposed to be feeling. "It's more that I don't want to be with girls _now_ , you know? Like, I wasn't, when I was with her. I wasn't lying. Do you think that's okay? That it shifts like that?"

"Is it always going to shift?" Nick asks, even though he's not entirely sure what Harry's saying. Harry says a lot of stuff that's difficult to parse, first time around. It's harder still when he's too scared to even look him in the face as they talk. 

"I don't think so," Harry says. "I think it's like a pendulum, you know, and if you let it go, eventually it'll just find its natural resting spot, and stop."

"And, um?" Nick has literally no idea how to venture through this minefield. There's a part of him that's so in love with Harry, even after all this time, but he's so, so terrified of that truth that he even lies to himself about it. He doesn't want to lay that bare for someone else to see it. "This pendulum. That's, like, um—"

"I think it's just always you, you know?" Harry says. "Like, you're the resting spot. Like, you've always been there, and I kept going past but I couldn't ever stop. You're my equilibrium." 

"Harry—" He stops walking, right there in the middle of the pavement. 

"I'm trying to tell you I love you," Harry says. "Is it working?"

"I don't know," Nick says. "I can't feel my hands and feet. Should I be able to?"

Harry looks at Nick's feet, and his hands, and then at Nick's face. "Before—like, there were always these moments, with you," he goes on. "All these amazing times, but it was always on the way to something else. You, with work, me, with mine. It just felt like we were always going past each other on our way to other stuff. Do you know what I mean?"

"Yeah," Nick says. "I know." It's raining more heavily now, the cardboard cake box is starting to go dark, it's so wet. He starts walking again, because they can't just stay standing there in the rain, Dog straining at his lead. They're still heading towards the park. "Why now?"

"You haven't told me how you feel," Harry says. He doesn't answer Nick's question. They cross the road. There are a couple of people running out of the gates from the park, but nobody's going in. 

Nick doesn't turn them both around so they can go home with the dog. 

"I think there's this thing," Nick says, and his heart's pounding. "All these times where I could have told you how I felt about you, or done something about it, but I knew it would never work out for us." He doesn't know what else to say. He lets Dog off the lead instead, and takes shelter under a huge oak tree, Harry following him off the path.

"God," Harry says, and the rain's running down his face, and he hasn't put his hood up, and his hair's all plastered flat against his head. "God, I love you."

The words are stuck in Nick's throat. He stares wordlessly at him instead, trying to make sense of what Harry's saying, but he can't. He can't. He doesn't know what to do, and he doesn't know what to say, so he reaches for the cake box instead, taking one and shoving the box towards Harry. 

They can't talk if they're eating. 

They eat a fruit tart each, hiding under the bare branches of the oak tree, Dog running backwards and forwards in front of them like it's his best day yet. Rain drips off the end of Nick's nose. He hasn't put his hood up either. His quiff will be all flat. He doesn't care. 

"How do you feel about me?" Harry asks, after he's finished his tart. "You still haven't said."

"God," Nick says, and he stuffs his tart case into his pocket, and buries his face in his hands. "I don't know how to be with you," he confesses. "I don’t know how to do any of it. I have never, in my whole life, not known what I want to do before. I'm fucking unemployed." He runs his hands through his hair, although he's got no idea why. If he looks anything like Harry does right now, he's doing his best impression of a drowned rat.

"Me too, soon," Harry says. He's smiling but it doesn't look natural. Nick doesn't like that. 

Nick shakes his head. "I've always loved you," he says, and if he's blinking away tears then at least no one will ever know, because it's coming down like cats and dogs now, rain bouncing off the paths and running down the hill in little puddle rivers, Dog jumping in and out of them like he's king of the world. "I have always, always fucking loved you." He stumbles over his words. 

"And?" Harry asks, softly. 

For something that's been so true for so long, it's terribly difficult to say it out loud. It's quiet when he finally says it. "Maybe you're my equilibrium too." 

Harry looks the other way at that, out into the park. It's starting to get dark already. "Can we go?"

"Go where?"

"Back to yours, I don't know."

"All right," Nick says, and he whistles and calls Dog back over so he can clip on his lead. 

He's trembling, and he doesn't know how to stop. 

~*~

They stand in Nick's entrance hall, dripping all over the Victorian mosaic. 

"Sorry," Harry says, whilst Dog runs around them in a circle. "I'm dripping."

"Me too," Nick says. "Will you stay?"

"Yeah, okay," Harry says, voice soft.

~*~

They shower in separate bathrooms, and Nick spends ages under the spray, trying to feel warm again. He washes his hair twice, even putting in the deep cleanse conditioner in so he has to spend another three minutes under the spray. 

By the time he gets out, Dog has grown bored with staying in his little fluffy towel cocoon in his basket, and wandered off. Nick gets dressed in tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt and a hoodie, and goes down to find him. 

Harry's in the kitchen, sitting at the table, eating Waitrose hazelnut and chocolate chip cookies from the packet, Dog settled on his knee. 

"Hi," Nick says, and he's trembling again, but it's nerves this time. Harry is soft and damp and warm, sitting at Nick's table like he belongs there, wrapped up in a sweatshirt and skinny jeans. Nick hadn't paid much attention to Harry rolling up with a holdall, but there must have been a change of clothes in there, because what Harry's wearing isn't Nick's, and it isn't what he was wearing before. 

Harry's face curves into a smile. "Hi," he says.

Nick's heart beats loud and fast in his chest. "I love you," he says, too quickly, and out of nowhere. "I really, really love you. But I'm fucking terrified."

"Me too," Harry says, stumbling awkwardly to his feet. Dog jumps down and darts out into the hall, his toenails loud against the tiles. Harry doesn't move. "When we were talking about putting an end to the band, I—I said I wanted to try to make a go of things with you. It wasn't just wanting a cat. I just said that. It was that I couldn't keep running past you on my way to somewhere else. I wanted you to _be_ the somewhere else. Or, like, I wanted the somewhere else to just mean you."

"What did they say? The lads. When you said that." They're Harry's family. Nick will never be able to compete with that. His breath catches. 

"That I'd waited long enough? I don't know. It was the right time. You're not fixed in one time and space now, either. That helped."

"That job was everything I ever wanted in my life," Nick says, and he makes an aborted attempt at stepping closer to Harry. He ends up by the radiator instead, closer but not close enough. "You get why it just had to be that, for a while? I had to do that."

"Same," Harry says. He nods. "I had to live every single moment of that band. I couldn't miss it."

"But now?"

"But now it's okay. Pendulum's stopping. It's just you, now. You're my balance point. I'm sorry I haven't been around that much recently. I just—had to finish everything else first." 

Nick can't look away from him. He never could, not really. Harry's always been his focus, but right now, he feels like he's Harry's. "I know." He really does know. "I'm, like, the same."

"I made you a coffee," Harry says, and in front of him on the table, next to the packet of biscuits, are two cups of coffee. 

"I don't want coffee," Nick says, and he hadn't meant to say that. Harry's head darts up. "I don't."

"Well, what then?"

Nick can't say it out loud. 

"There are a billion possible worlds out there," Harry says, like Nick's supposed to know what the hell he's going on about. "In, like, a million of them, I've kissed you already."

"Right." A million worlds where they've already kissed. Nick doesn't care about all those other versions of him and Harry. He cares about this world, this version, the two of them together, right now. 

"I'm kissing you right now, in some of them."

"Harry—"

"I love you," Harry says. "It's taken me long enough to tell you."

Nick's breath catches in his throat. "Why aren't you kissing me?" he asks softly. "Like, right this second, why aren't you kissing me?"

"Why aren't you kissing _me_?" Harry asks, and Nick has to move, he has to put one foot in front of the other and cross the kitchen to where Harry's standing, but he's standing still. It takes a colossal, desperate effort for him to move. He's had to hide this part of him for so long, even from himself, and he's terrified of giving in to it, of what it might mean. 

He's braver than this. 

"Come on," he says. "Not in the kitchen." He angles his head towards the door. "I'll do you in the living room instead."

"Much better," Harry agrees, and Nick wonders if Harry feels the same as he does, the same teetering on the edge terrible fear that Nick's feeling. Like there's a before and an after point, and this is the bit in the middle, and it changes everything, for good. 

Nick stands in front of the fireplace. He turns the _Enjoy_ light on, and the room's bathed in neon blue. 

"Looks good," Harry says, from the doorway, and then he's coming over and wrapping his arms around Nick's neck, and pulling him into a hug. "You're what I've been waiting for," he says, pressing his mouth to Nick's skin, and Nick shivers with it, digging into the hug. "You're the balance."

Nick isn't eloquent like that. He never has been. He loses his hand in Harry's hair instead, shutting his eyes and holding on. Harry smells like coconut shower gel, the kind Nick keeps in the second bathroom, for guests. "There's this thing," he says, his nose pressed up against Harry's cheek. "This thing where I always expect to see you. I'm in a room and I expect you to be there too. I come home and I expect you to be on the doorstep. The door goes at work, and I expect you to be in it. There's, like, this space for you here already. You just need to step into it."

"I love you," Harry whispers, against the shell of his ear. "I'm glad you waited."

"Like you said, isn't it," Nick says. "Pendulums. Different trajectories. Just kept swinging past each other, or whatever."

"I want to touch you," Harry says, and he's already playing with the waistband of Nick's hoodie. "Please. I want to touch you."

Nick nods. The heating's on, and the house is getting warmer. Old pipes, is the thing. Takes a bit of time. He steps back, and unzips his hoodie. Harry watches him, and then pulls his sweatshirt over his head, dropping it down onto the floor next to him. He isn't wearing a t-shirt. 

There's a new tattoo on his left side, up above his hip bone and the laurel, underneath the birdcage. It's a clock, the kind you hang on a wall, like a cuckoo clock, the pendulum hanging down. The ink's still raised up, a ridge across his skin. The tattoo's new. 

"Is that—"

"It's just time," Harry says. "That's all it is. It's time." He pauses. "Time's on my side."

Nick rolls his eyes, but he can't keep from smiling. "It is," he says, and then he takes off his hoodie, and then his t-shirt, and drops it down onto the floor next to him. He holds out his hand, and Harry takes it, and then Nick walks them over to the sofa. He sits down and swings his feet up onto the cushions, and Harry crawls on top of him, his necklaces hanging down and hitting Nick in the chin. 

"I'm not waiting any longer to kiss you," Harry says, voice gruff, and Nick's not waiting any longer either. Permission to touch, and to kiss, and it's all he's wanted for such a long time that now he's got it, he doesn’t know what to do with it. He settles for running his fingertips down Harry's back, over the ridges of his spine, feeling him tremble and his intake of breath as he comes to rest his hand in the small of Harry's back. 

Harry leans in, and Nick tilts his chin up, and then Harry's mouth is on Nick's, and they're kissing, finally finally _finally_. Harry's mouth is soft and slow against his, gentle even, and he's refusing to rush even as he's sliding his hand into Nick's shower-damp hair. Nick shivers into it, and kisses him like he's finally at rest, like the time really is right, and the waiting has been worth it. 

It doesn't quiet the part of him that wishes they'd been doing this forever, but it stills the rest of him. It makes the rest of it make sense. 

~*~ 

Harry is extra sensitive where his butterfly touches his ribs: Nick strokes his thumbs over it carefully, feeling Harry tremble beneath him, shivering away from his touch as his laugh catches in his throat. 

"I'm ticklish," he says, whilst Nick just nods and draws his thumbs down Harry's sides. Harry is a canvas of memories and moments and precise stopping points in time, a breathing record of where he's been and how he's changed, and everything in between. He's bigger than Nick, definition shaping his skin. Nick leans in to press his mouth to his stomach, fingertips stroking at that pale patch of skin between his belly button and the waistband of his underwear—their trousers left downstairs on the floor by the settee—and Nick noses at the trail of hair inching down beneath the cotton of his pants. 

Sex is, in general, something fun and a bit ridiculous and generally quite messy. It isn't _this_ , whatever this is, the two of them together in Nick's bedroom, still in their underwear, just touching each other. There's something about Harry's body that people think they own, and Nick's as guilty of this as the next person: he knows some of the tattoos and the way he looks when he laughs just as much from the newspapers and magazines as he does from seeing him in person. He's been his friend long enough to remember seeing Harry start using his skin as a canvas, but even knowing that, there's an intimacy to getting to touch him like this. To map it all out by trailing his fingertips across his skin, to be allowed to when Harry doesn't let just anyone do this, it's startlingly intimate. 

"I love you," Harry says, as Nick traces out the laurel leaves across his hips. He slides a hand into Nick's hair. 

"Yeah," Nick says. He drops a kiss to one of Harry's many nipples. "Look, you know, I never asked—are you going to come out? Or is this, like, I don't know." He doesn't know how to finish, so he doesn't. He lets it trail off. 

Harry's fingers tighten in his hair. "It's all of it," he says. "I was going to ask. You know when I come back to London properly, can I stay here?"

"You've got a house," Nick points out, which isn't a _no_. It's a _yes_ , actually, and he thinks Harry should know that. 

"I hate being by myself," Harry says, and Nick kisses his stomach again, just to feel him tremble, sensitive, beneath him. 

"Me too," Nick says, and he crawls up the bed to cover Harry's mouth with his own, licking into his mouth until Harry knows that Nick means all of it, every single breath of it, every silent _I love you_ and _I've been waiting for you all this time_ that Nick won't ever be able to say out loud. "Everything's better if I'm with you."

"Yeah." Harry's breath sounds a little ragged against Nick's mouth. He draws his knee up so that Nick has to shift position, lying on top of him with his hand cupping Harry's face. He can feel Harry's dick hard against his thigh; he's seen Harry naked—everyone's seen Harry naked—but he's never felt this before. Never seen the flush to Harry's skin or felt the hitch to his breath as Nick shifts position, drawing himself up a little so that his erection is brushing against Harry's. "Please, Nick. I've waited so long. I want to see you," he pleads.

It makes Nick feel like a million fucking pounds. More than a million; it makes him feel wanted, and loved, and Nick is a self-confessed narcissist, but nothing's come close to this. 

They take their pants off quickly, in clear difference to how the rest of the evening's gone, and then Harry's in front of him on the bed, his dick hard and flushed and slick across the tip, and Nick loves him; he loves him. He loves him. 

"What do you want to do?" Nick asks, dropping down on the bed by Harry's side. He leans in to touch a kiss to Harry's broad shoulder, and stroke his thumb over Harry's nipple as he rubs his dick against Harry's thigh. Harry trembles beneath his touch, and Nick loves that. Nick could really grow to love all of this. 

Harry laughs, but it sounds breathless. He keeps running his hand up and down Nick's arms. "I want to make you come," he says, and he rolls over so that he's bracketing Nick against the bed, and Nick's breath catches as Harry kneels up over him, leaning in to kiss him again. "I want to learn it all. What turns you on. Everything. All of it."

"All of this stuff you don't know yet," Nick tries to stifle his groan as Harry rolls his hips down against Nick's. He makes a grab for Harry's hips, sliding his hands down until they're cupping Harry's bum. He tugs him closer, and he's gratified when Harry whines into his mouth. 

"I know, right?" Harry says breathlessly, in between kisses. "I love this stuff. Finding it all out."

"You would," Nick says, and he's overwhelmed with it, this warmth in his chest, the depths of how he feels about Harry, this dream he's apparently living without ever having planned for it. "God, I'd think of all these ways we could do this, you know, in my imagination. Ways you could have your job and I could have mine, you know? And we'd still get this. I never made it work."

"Same," Harry says, his voice catching. "And, like, I'd need you to be on tour sometimes. Like, away with me. And you couldn't be."

"I'd have locked you here," Nick says, and it still hurts to say it out loud, even as he's sneaking his fingertips down between Harry's arse cheeks to graze over his hole, and Harry's hips ricochet into his as he groans out his appreciation. "You'd have been stuck calling me all the time and coming home when you had time off."

"The others didn't mind that. They all came home." He rolls his hips down into Nick's again, stretching up cobra-style, one hand next to Nick's head. Nick takes advantage, and presses his mouth to Harry's nipple, nipping at it with his teeth so that Harry cries out. 

"Not the same, though, was it?" Harry's bandmates are all homeboys at heart. Harry's different; there's always been something at least a little nomadic about him. Nick can't stop touching him, his hands everywhere. Harry is this gorgeous, amazing, beautiful expanse of a human, and he's Nick's to touch, and he can't get enough of it. "Think about all the people you wouldn't have met."

"I know." He groans, cupping Nick's face in his palm and dropping down to kiss him again, thumb stroking at Nick's jaw. "I'm not done with all of that either, you know? There's still a whole world out there."

"I know," Nick says. He knows it all. He just can't quite focus on their conversation _and_ having sex. 

"It's not that I wouldn't have wanted to come home to you," Harry says, kissing him again. He nips at Nick's bottom lip with his teeth. "It's just—"

"Our jobs were the one in a million-million kind," Nick says, because he gets it. He really, really gets it. Harry doesn't have to explain this to him. He rolls them over so that he's the one on top for a change, and he can be the one rubbing off against Harry's thigh.

"I love you," Harry wraps his arms around Nick's neck, tugging him near. He reaches up and kisses him. Nick can't believe how turned on he's getting just from touching and kissing. "I'm going to tell you that all the time. To make up for all the times I couldn't."

"I'd be telling you it all the time too, then," Nick says, before he can stop himself. Harry just looks happy, though, breathless and turned on, so maybe it's not the worst that could happen. 

Just for this moment, they're both happy. 

Happy, and really turned on. 

They fuck, finally, Nick fingering himself open whilst Harry watches, hand around his cock. He's bigger than the last few guys Nick's been with, but Nick's always been a bigger-is-better kind of a person, and anyway, he's the one making Harry breathless and turned on. He fingers himself until Harry's ragged and needy, taking over to slide his fingers in alongside Nick's. He's so full already, stretched wide around his two fingers and Harry's as well, and there's nothing that could have prepared him for how it feels to have Harry touching him like this. Everything is intimate and it's almost as if saying _I love you_ out loud has magnified all of that into something even bigger, even brighter, even more meaningful. 

It's new to Nick, this feeling. 

When Harry finally presses inside of him, the push so slow that Nick's breath catches in his throat, he wraps his hands around Harry's wrists and holds on, breathless with need. Seeing Harry like this, flushed and red and coming apart above him, it pushes him on, makes him hold on even tighter. 

Harry keeps on kissing him, groaning against his mouth, whining as Nick clenches around him. It's so fucking hot that Nick doesn't know what to do with himself. All these years and years of waiting and it's all coalescing into this one moment in time: Harry above him, holding himself up, face flushed, panting his arousal into Nick's skin. 

Nick wants to see him come. He wants to see him come more than anything. 

"Come on, love," he urges, kissing him again and again. "I wanna see you. Need it, please."

It's been the longest, longest wait, but when Harry starts to come, when he comes inside of Nick, dropping down on top of him and panting breathlessly into Nick's throat, it's like there's nothing there for him to hold on for anymore. Nick wraps his hand around his dick to finish himself off, but Harry's too quick for him, getting there first and wanking him off. It's not perfect and it's not how he'd do it himself, but he doesn't need that. He needs Harry catching his mouth in a kiss, panting _I love you_ into his skin as Nick starts to come, as he comes all over Harry's hand, and his stomach, and Harry's wiping it away with his hand. Then Harry's collapsing down on top of him, sweaty and breathless and _his_ , and they're kissing again, like there's no end to any of it, just the beginning of something more, and Nick can't breathe with it. 

He kisses him over and over, for ages and ages and ages, until his lips are chapped and he's learned the way Harry's body curves beneath his hand. Until they've remembered to tie off the condom from the first time, and they've kissed for so long that they've gone full circle and can get started on round two. Until Nick's wanking Harry off, and twisting on the sheets so that he can kneel in between his legs and wrap his mouth around Harry's dick. Until he can taste him on his tongue, and breathe around him as he sucks him off. Until he can press his fingers to Harry's hole, and slide the tip of one in as he goes down on him. 

Until Harry comes, finally, crying out and shaking beneath him, and Nick can swallow most of it down and then kneel up over him and wank until he's coming all over Harry's dick. 

Until all of that and more, until they fall asleep wrapped up together, sweaty and revolting and so, so in love. 

~*~

Nick wakes up to Harry asleep next to him, arm slung across Nick's stomach even in sleep. He doesn't want to wake him up, so he checks Twitter from his pillow with one eye closed, turning down the brightness on his phone so that the glare doesn't wake Harry up. 

There's a new Tweet from Harry; it just says, _massive bob trajectory = equilibrium = this_. 

Harry hasn't got any less difficult to read over the years. Nick's here in bed with him, and he still can't parse it all. He Googles _massive bob trajectory_ , and finds out that bob can be another name for pendulum. For a moment, he considers retweeting it, but he can't do that without having a conversation with Harry first. 

He favourites it instead, and goes back to sleep. 

~*~

Harry doesn't move in. He just doesn't leave, which isn't the same thing at all. 

~*~

@Harry_Styles The mechanical energy of a pendulum is constant. Instagram.com/p/653ryj57x

The picture is of Harry's legs, sprawled across Nick's sofa with his feet hooked over Nick's thighs. Their faces aren't shown, but the picture is lit with the pale blue of Nick's neon _Enjoy_ sign, and Harry's hand is very, very clearly in Nick's. There's enough that's familiar in the picture that the Internet will work it out soon enough. 

Nick brings their linked hands up to his mouth, and kisses Harry's knuckles, around his stupid rings. "You ready for this?" he asks. 

"Yeah," Harry says, and he's smiling, and Nick loves him. "I'm ready."

~*~

Two weeks after Harry's Instagram picture, they leave the house together to walk the dog. It's not raining, for about the first time since Nick finished doing the Breakfast Show. The park's fuller than it has been in ages. 

They get two Styrofoam cups of bad coffee from the van by the entrance, and wander round for a good half hour, Dog racing off and racing back and running in circles, and then setting off to do the whole thing again. 

Nick glances at Harry after a while. He throws his empty coffee cup in the bin, and then reaches for Harry's, throwing it in after his. It's weird, not touching in public. At home they're still all over each other, not yet tired of the permission to touch, but out of the house they stand apart, and at a distance. 

Harry laughs for no reason at all. There's a love bite peeking out from underneath his stupid scarf. Nick's heart beats loud in his chest. It feels like a turning point, and he doesn't even know how they got here. 

Harry just keeps on looking at him. 

"Time's on your side," Nick says, after a bit where he can't think of anything else to say. Dog bounds over and then disappears off again, for no good reason. Nick knows how he feels. 

"It's on _our_ side. Finally." He's smiling at him, easy and open and Nick's, and Nick loves him. He really, really loves him. 

"Yeah," Nick says, trying to drag his attention back to the present, and away from imagining all the things that he and Harry can do in bed together. Time is on their side. The future is theirs for the taking. 

"You wouldn't change any of it, would you? If you could?"

Nick just laughs at that. "Idiot," he says, which he hopes is answer enough. 

There's a long pause before Harry reaches for Nick's hand, right there in public where everyone can see. 

Time, for a moment, stands terribly, breathtakingly still. 

Then Nick lets out a breath, laces his fingers with Harry's, and whistles for Dog, who comes running and then comes to an abrupt stop five feet away, sitting down in a nice, wet, revolting patch of mud. 

"Let's go home," Harry says, and Nick can't help but smile at him. He thinks what he's feeling must be reflected back at him in Harry's smile; it's blindingly bright.

"All right," Nick says, "but you've got to get Dog out of that puddle first." Dog is drawn towards mud like Nick's drawn towards skinny jeans. It's a long and intense relationship. 

"I know, I know," Harry says. "It's my turn to bath him."

"Yeah," Nick says, and he doesn't let go of Harry's hand. "It is."

[end]

**Author's Note:**

> [This is what I was thinking of when I was picturing Harry's heart artwork](http://lottehobbs.tumblr.com/post/2094075906/lotte-hobbs-all-heart-digital-print-of-silk), by the wonderful [Lotte Hobbs](http://lottehobbs.tumblr.com/). My description does not do the original justice.
> 
> [tumblr](http://magicalrocketships.tumblr.com/) // [twitter](https://twitter.com/sunsetmog)


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